All creatures in the universe
have a right to defend themselves. Being armed and trained in the defense
of one's own home or country has traditionally been a civic responsibility.
Only when government fears its people does it actively pursue disarming
them. Our own Senate is aware of the historical implications of disarmament
and yet, the federal government is going forward with its campaign to
discourage and criminalize the possession and use of firearms among
the law-abiding citizenry. Regardless of what your modern mind has been
conditioned to think about guns, gun laws and the right to keep and
bear arms, a historical fact remains: Unarmed people are at the mercy
of those who wield weapons.

by Hari Heath

Many liberty-minded Americans
realize the pivotal importance of the Right to keep and bear arms. The
ongoing infringement of that Right has many of us justifiably “up
in arms.”

It would seem there is an
overt design to destroy our Rights because a simple investigation would
reveal the obvious: the Bill of Rights enumerates the right of each citizen
to possess and bear arms; the courts have recognized this right as a fundamental
right antecedent to the Constitution; and in spite of clear unambiguous
language declaring that the “Right to keep and bear arms shall not
be infringed,” infringement is the current and continuing course
of action for the Congress and administrative agencies.

Among the evidence that this
infringement is an intentional act is a 1982 Senate Report: The Right
to Keep and Bear Arms. The Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee
on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-Seventh Congress, Second
Session published this report (U.S. Government Printing Office, 88-618
0 WASHINGTON: 1982). The cover lists Strom Thurmond, Joseph Biden, Edward
Kennedy, Orrin Hatch, Robert Byrd, Robert Dole, Howard Metzenbaum, Alan
Simpson, Dennis DeConcini, Patrick Leahy, Max Baucus, Arlen Specter and
others as members of the committee which published this report, therefore,
they should know what the Right to Keep and Bear Arms means.

The report is quite favorable
to the recognition of the individual's Right to possess arms. It details
the history of the Right, even the duty, of bearing arms. Its historical
analysis begins with examples of English laws requiring an armed citizenry.
The American colonial and revolutionary era is covered along with pertinent
facts about our nation's founders and their attitudes regarding an armed
population. There is also a review of early and contemporary court rulings
on the subject. An appendix exemplifies a broad cross section of case
law on many aspects of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

A concluding section details
the “Enforcement of Federal Firearms Laws From the Perspective of
the Second Amendment.” It begins with a brief discussion of the
1934, 1938 and 1968 federal firearms acts. The bulk of this section provides
many stories of BATF abuses (circa 1982) and accompanying statistics.

History of the Right
in Britain

The report begins with laws
from the reign of Alfred the Great (872 A.D.) which required “all
English citizens from the nobility to the peasants were obliged to privately
purchase weapons and be available for military duty.” Even after
the Norman conquest, the right and duty of arms possession was retained.
Under the Assize of Arms of 1181, “the whole community of freemen
between the ages of 15 and 40 were required by law to possess certain
arms.”

“In 1253, another Assize
of Arms expanded the duty of armament to include not only freemen, but
also villeins, who were the English equivalent of serfs. In 1285, Edward
I commanded that all persons comply with the earlier Assizes and added
that 'anyone else who can afford them shall keep bows and arrows,'”
the Senate report explained.

The report cites a few examples
of ancient “weapons control” laws, since they predate the
invention and use of the gun. “In 1279, it was ordered that those
appearing in parliament and other assemblies 'shall come without all force
and armor, well and peaceably.'

“A 1328 statute of
Northampton ordered that no one use their arms in 'an affray of the peace,
nor to go nor to ride armed by day or night in fairs, markets, nor in
the presence of the justices or other ministers.' English courts construed
this ban consistently with the general right of private armament as applying
only to the wearing of arms 'accompanied with such circumstances as are
apt to terrify the people.'”

In 1503, Henry VII limited
the shooting of, but not the possession of crossbows to certain wealthier
landowners, with an exception for those who “shote owt of a howse
for the lawefull defens of the same.”

By 1511, Henry VIII increased
the land ownership requirement for shooting crossbows while expanding
the requirement of longbow ownership, requiring all citizens to “use
and exercyse shootyng in longbowes, and also have a bow and arrow contynually”
in the house. “Fathers were required by law to purchase bows and
arrows for their sons between the age of 7 and 14 and to train them in
longbow use,” the report states.

In 1514, the limitations
on crossbow shooting was extended to include firearms, but by 1533, the
property qualifications were reduced, and eventually King Henry repealed
the entire statute.

The report further informs
our Senate that “the later Tudor monarchs continued the system [of
an armed citizenry] and Elizabeth added to it by creating what came to
be known as 'train bands,' selected portions of the citizenry chosen for
special training.

“These trained bands
were distinguished from the 'militia,' which term was first used during
the Spanish Armada crisis to designate the entirety of the armed citizenry.

“The militia continued
to be a pivotal force in the English political system. British historian
Charles Oman considers the existence of the armed citizenry to be a major
reason for the moderation of monarchical rule in Great Britain; 'More
than once he [Henry VIII] had to restrain himself, when he discovered
that the general feeling of his subjects was against him... His 'gentleman
pensioners' and his yeoman of the guard were but a handful, and bill or
bows were in every farm and cottage.”

Similar to our current Orwellian
“Patriot Act,” Charles II “opened his reign with a variety
of repressive legislations, expanding the definition of treason, establishing
press censorship and ordering his supporters to form their own troops.

“In 1662, a Militia
Act was enacted empowering officials 'to search for and seize all arms
in the custody or possession of any person or persons whom the said lieutenants
or any two or more of their deputies shall judge dangerous to the peace
of the kingdom.' Gunsmiths were ordered to deliver to the government lists
of all purchasers. These confiscations continued under James II, who directed
them particularly against the Irish population.”

Colonial Gun Laws

The senate report continues
with colonial history. “In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists
to travel unless they were 'well armed'; in 1631 it required colonists
to engage in target practice on Sunday and to 'bring their peeces to church.'
In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within
his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he
was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by
the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price
when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature
ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms
and in 1644 it imposed a stern six-shilling fine upon any citizen who
was not armed.

“When the British government
began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth
century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves
in defense. When British troops seized a militia arsenal in September,
1774, 60,000 citizens took up arms.”

Constitutional debates
on the Militia

“Following the revolution,
but previous to the adoption of the Constitution, debates over militia
proposals occupied a large part of the political scene. All of the proposals
called for a general duty of all citizens to be armed, although Baron
von Steuben and others also emphasized a 'select militia' which would
be paid for its services and given special training. In this respect,
this 'select militia' was the successor of the 'trained bands' and the
predecessor of what is today the 'national guard.'

“A Connecticut writer
complained that 'this looks too much like Baron von Steuben's militia,
by which a standing army was meant and intended.' A Pennsylvania delegate
argued, 'Congress may give us a select militia which will, in fact, be
a standing army -- or Congress, afraid of a general militia, may say there
will be no militia at all. When a select militia is formed, the people
in general may be disarmed.'

“Richard Henry Lee
wrote, 'should one fifth or one eighth of the people capable of bearing
arms be made into a select militia, as has been proposed, and those the
young and ardent parts of the community, possessed of little or no property,
the former will answer all the purposes of an army, while the latter will
be defenseless.'”

The report confirms what
many proponents of the individual's Right to keep and bear arms proclaim:
“The suspicion of select militia units expressed in these passages
is a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution did not seek
to guarantee a State right to maintain formed groups similar to the National
Guard, but rather to protect the right of individual citizens to keep
and bear arms. Lee, in particular, sat in the Senate which approved the
Bill of Rights. He would hardly have meant the Second Amendment to apply
only to the select militias he so feared and disliked.

“When the first Congress
convened for the purpose of drafting a Bill of Rights, it delegated the
task to James Madison. Madison did not write upon a blank tablet. Instead,
he obtained a pamphlet listing the State proposals for a Bill of Rights
and sought to produce a briefer version incorporating all the vital proposals
of these.”

Madison's original article
to secure the right to keep and bear arms read: “The right of the
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and
well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but
no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to
render military service in person.

The militia clause was later
placed in front of the clause proclaiming the people's right and the conscientious
objector clause was removed so that it finally read as: “A well
regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state; the
right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The report further states
that: “the Senate in the process [of drafting and adopting the Bill
of Rights] indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for
private purposes, by rejecting an amendment which would have limited the
keeping and bearing of arms to bearing 'for the common defense.'

A lawful Right

George Tucker published an
1803 edition of Blackstone annotated to American law which followed Blackstone's
British citation of the right of the subject “of having arms suitable
to their condition and degree, and as such as are allowed by law.”
Tucker cited the Second Amendment and added “and this without any
qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British
government.”

William Rawle published View
of the Constitution in 1825 and noted that “under the Second Amendment
the prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution by a rule of
construction be conceived to give Congress a power to disarm the people.”

Joseph Story in his Commentaries
on the Constitution “considered the right to keep and bear arms
as 'the palladium of liberties of the republic,' which deterred tyranny
and enabled the citizenry at large to overthrow it should it come to pass.

In 1822, the Kentucky Court
of Appeals struck down an 1813 concealed carry statute as violation of
the state constitutional protection of the right to keep and bear arms:
“And can there be entertained a reasonable doubt but the provisions
of that act import a restraint on the right of the citizen to bear arms?
The court apprehends it not. The right existed at the adoption of the
Constitution; it then had no limit short of the moral power of the citizens
to exercise it, and in fact consisted of nothing else but the liberty
of the citizen to bear arms.”

The Georgia Supreme Court
reviewed a ban on the sale of pistols in Nunn v. State (1 Ga. 243,251
(1846). Its ruling stated, “the right of the whole people, old and
young, men women and boys and not militia only, to keep and bear arms
of every description, and not merely such as are used by the militia,
shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in on, in the slightest degree;
and all this for the important end to be obtained: the rearing up and
qualifying of a well regulated militia, so vitally necessary for the security
of a free state.”

Could it possibly be made
any clearer to our current Senators what the Second Amendment really means?

National Guard and
the Militia

The Senate report states,
“the 'militia' itself referred to a concept of universally armed
people, not to any specifically organized unit. When the framers referred
to the equivalent of our National Guard, they uniformly referred to the
'select militia' and distinguished this from 'militia.' Indeed, the debates
over the Constitution constantly referred to organized militia units as
a threat to freedom comparable to that of a standing army, and stressed
that such organized units did not constitute, and indeed were philosophically
opposed to, the concept of a militia.

“That the National
Guard is not the 'militia' referred to in the Second Amendment is even
clearer today. Congress has organized the National Guard under its power
to 'raise and support armies' and not its power to 'Provide for organizing,
arming and disciplining the Militia.'

The modem National Guard
was specifically intended to avoid status as the constitutional militia,
a distinction recognized by 10 U.S.C. Sec. 311(a).”

Federal firearms
laws

The report addresses some
of the federal firearms laws that were then in effect. It begins with
the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) which covers fully automatic weapons
(machine guns), rifles and shotguns with a barrel or overall length less
than certain minimums and silencers (suppressors).

As the report states, “since
the Act was adopted under the revenue power, sale of these firearms was
not made subject to a ban or permit system. Instead, each transfer was
made subject to a $200 excise tax, which must be paid prior to transfer;
the identification of the parties to the transfer indirectly accomplished
a registration purpose.”

The Federal Firearms Act
of 1938 “placed some limitations upon sale of ordinary firearms.
Persons engaged in the business of selling those firearms in interstate
commerce were required to obtain a Federal Firearms License (FFL), at
an annual cost of $1, and to maintain records of the name and address
of persons to whom they sold firearms. Sales to persons convicted of violent
felonies were prohibited.”

Again, an indirect registration
purpose was accomplished while a Right began to be converted to a licensed
“privilege,” under the guise of regulating interstate commerce.

Thirty years later, the Gun
Control Act of 1968, “worked a major revision of federal law.”
It “imposed limitations on imported firearms, expanded the requirement
of dealer licensing to cover anyone 'engaged in the business of dealing'
in firearms, whether in interstate or local commerce, and expanded the
record keeping obligations for dealers. It also imposed a variety of direct
limitations upon sales of handguns. No transfers were to be permitted
between residents of different states (unless the recipient was an FFL
holder), even where the transfer was by gift rather than sale.”

Persons convicted of any
felony, except business related felonies (white collar crime); persons
subject to a mental commitment order or finding of mental incompetence,
drug users and other categories were ineligible to purchase from a FFL
dealer.

Federal enforcement

Enforcement of the 1968 GCA
was delegated to the Department of the Treasury, which in turn gave the
responsibility to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the Internal
Revenue Service. The government's gun control business boomed with the
new laws and by July, 1972, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(BATF) became its own bureau of the Department of the Treasury. The general
infringement of our firearms rights became administratively enshrined
since that time.

BATF abuses

The Senate report extensively
exposes a number of BATF abuses and misconduct. Several Senate hearings
were held in 1979 and 1980. The report states, “based upon these
hearings, it is apparent that enforcement tactics made possible by current
federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally and practically reprehensible.”

The primary objective of
the 68 GCA was “limiting the access of felons and high risk groups
to firearms.” But two members of the Illinois judiciary testified,
“they had been totally unable to persuade BATF to accept cases against
felons who were in possession of firearms, including sawed-off shotguns.”

The Bureau's own figures
showed that the percentage of its arrests of felons and persons selling
to them dropped from 14 percent to 10 percent of their firearm cases.
The BATF later stated that, “55 percent of its gun law prosecutions
involve persons with no record of felony conviction and one-third involve
citizens with no police contact at all.”

The Subcommittee on the Constitution
received evidence that the “BATF has primarily devoted its firearms
enforcement efforts to the apprehension, upon technical malum prohibitum
charges, of individuals who lack all criminal intent and knowledge”
and “evidence received...demonstrated that Bureau agents have tended
to concentrate on collector's items rather than 'criminal street guns.'”

The report details routine
BATF conduct, where gun collectors are enticed into making a few sales
to undercover agents and then charged with engaging in the business without
a license, which can result in a felony conviction for a crime which they
had no knowledge or intent they were violating, preventing their future
firearms ownership for life, while the BATF confiscates their entire collection
even before they are convicted. “In several cases, the agents refused
to return the collection even after acquittal by a jury.

“In several cases,
the Bureau sought conviction for supposed technical violations based upon
policies and interpretations of law which the Bureau had not published
in the Federal Register as required by 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552. In these and
similar areas, the Bureau has violated not only the dictates of common
sense, but 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552, which was intended to prevent 'secret lawmaking'
by administrative bodies.”

And this was 1982. Currently,
being a FFL holder allows federal agents to search your home or business
at any time, imposes immaculate records-keeping requirements and compliance
with so many regulations a large, bound volume is required to list them
all and which the violation of even one sentence contained therein could
result in a felony conviction and the banishment of an FFL holder's Right
to keep and bear arms for life.

Has the federal government
forgotten what the Georgia Supreme Court said long ago, that the Right
to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken
in on, in the slightest degree?”

Infringement in the first
instance, under the guise of revenue and interstate commerce, has led
to the next instance of regulating local and private sales, which are
now managed by an agency the U.S. Senate acknowledged as abusing its statutory
authority.

Continuing infringement

Beyond commerce and revenue,
the federal government has progressed by leaps and bounds in its continuing
infringement of the Right to keep and bear arms. Mere accusations resulting
in a state domestic protection order can ban ownership of firearms, under
federal law; federal misdemeanor sentencing guidelines can include probation
terms which prohibit firearms possession, even when the “crime”
was only a non-violent regulatory violation.

Waiting periods, background
checks, limitation of magazine capacity, import bans on certain firearms,
prohibitions of various firearms configurations and outright bans of others
litter the federal law books and regulations. While pretending to be for
benevolent purposes they have but one malevolent design: The absolute
infringement of the Right to keep and bear arms and, once that is accomplished,
the destruction of all else that Americans hold dear.

From a moral, freedom-lover's
perspective, the Senate report reveals an abominable history against the
Rights of human beings. But we are often inclined to view and understand
things according to our personal matrix of perception and preference.
When we fail to perceive a subject from the perspective of another's matrix
we can fail to understand them.

By what matrix do our current
Senators perceive the subject? From an amoral “tyrannists”
perspective, the report is an ancient road map showing the path to conquest
and subjugation of the people, letting our Senate know they are right
on course with their agenda. Remember, they have spent a lifetime questing
for power, and its acquisition has not always been by moral means. If
we try to understand them through their matrix, rather than our own, we
can then reconcile the discrepancies between the contents of this report
and current congressional conduct.

What is Congress up to today?
The following bills are but a few of the current gun related legislation.

Technological Resource to
Assist Criminal Enforcement (TRACE) Act (H.R.776). Bullet Tracing Act
To Reduce Gun Violence (H.R.24) To require ballistics testing of firearms
manufactured in or imported into the United States, and to provide for
the compilation, use, and availability of ballistics information for the
purpose of curbing the use of firearms in crime.

Gun Show Loophole Closing
Act of 2004 H.R.3832) (S.1807) To require “special firearms events
operators” to notify “the Attorney General, in writing, of
the date, time, duration, and location of the special firearms event,
and the special firearms event vendors planning to participate;”
at least 30 days beforehand, and “verify the identity of each special
firearms event vendor participating in the special firearms event by examining
a valid identification document (as defined in section 1028(d)(2)) of
the vendor containing a photograph of the vendor” and “require
each special firearms event vendor to sign a ledger with identifying information
concerning the vendor; and notify the vendor of the obligations of the
vendor under this chapter; notify each person who attends the special
firearms event of the requirements of this chapter, in accordance with
such regulations as the Attorney General shall prescribe. If any part
of a firearm transaction takes place at a special firearms event, or on
the curtilage of the event, it shall be unlawful for any person who is
not licensed under this chapter to transfer a firearm to another person
who is not licensed under this chapter, unless the firearm is transferred
through a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or
a special firearms event licensee. A special firearms event licensee shall
not transfer a firearm at a special firearms event.

Iris Scan Security Act of
2003 (HR 1171) To provide grants to law enforcement agencies to use iris
scanning technology to conduct background checks on individuals who want
to purchase guns.”

On the positive side

States' Rights and Second
and Tenth Amendment Restoration Act of 2003 (H.R.276) States are the proper
authority, rather than the Federal Government, to classify Domestic Violence
offenses. Section 658 of Public Law 104-208, commonly referred to as the
Lautenberg amendment, oversteps Federal authority, violating States' rights,
because no nexus has been shown to exist between Domestic Violence and
interstate commerce. The Lautenberg amendment does not deal with a subject
delegated to Congress under article I, section 8 of the Constitution of
the United States and is therefore unconstitutional under the tenth amendment
to the Constitution, as interpreted by United States v. Lopez. The Lautenberg
amendment oversteps Congress's power to regulate commerce as delineated
by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

District of Columbia Personal
Protection Act (S.1414) To restore second amendment rights in the District
of Columbia.

Citizens' Self-Defense Act
of 2003 (H.R.648) (H.R.2789) To protect the right to obtain firearms for
security, and to use firearms in defense of self, family, or home, and
to provide for the enforcement of such right.

Expressing the sense of Congress
with respect to the Second Amendment. (H.CON.RES.179) Expressing the sense
of Congress with respect to the Second Amendment: Whereas our forefathers
developed a Bill of Rights to protect the rights of individuals; Whereas
the right to bear arms is a cornerstone of our individual freedoms guaranteed
by the U.S. Constitution; Whereas gun ownership is an integral part of
our free society today; and Whereas in the ruling of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the Circuit Court's
prior ruling in Hickman v. Block, 81 F. 3rd 98 (Ninth Cir. 1996) that
the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own or possess
arms: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the
Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the Second
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees individuals
the right to bear arms.

Second Amendment Protection
Act of 2003 (H.R.153) To restore the second amendment rights of all Americans.

Firearms Heritage Protection
Act of 2003 (H.R.357) To prohibit civil liability actions from being brought
or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers
of firearms or ammunition for damages resulting from the misuse of their
products by others.

A new standing army

While your rights are diminishing,
there are exceptions. The police are allowed to purchase and possess machine
guns and silencers, exempting them from the 1934 NFA.

Your local supermarket carries
magazines displaying the latest in tactical weapons technology for modem
day “law enforcement.” This new “select militia,”
or standing army is already on patrol and increasingly uses enforcement
strategies aimed more at regulating your conduct than protecting you from
genuine criminals.

Our founders were quite concerned
about the establishment of a “select militia” stating that
it “will, in fact, be a standing army.” Consider the fact
that we have more policemen employed by New York City than we have troops
currently deployed in Iraq.

How many “Special Weapons
And Tactics” (SWAT) teams exist across America? Nearly every local
jurisdiction has at least one. And this is just the standing army from
our regular police forces.

We have entered the age of
Homeland Security, of federal, state and local police and the battle cry
of “terrorism, terrorism, terrorism!”

The Bill of Rights was
a single amendment to the Constitution with 10 articles, all ratified
December 15, 1791. We used the popular misnomer, the “Second Amendment”
herein, as it is commonly referred to.

Correctly stated, the Right
to keep and bear arms is covered in the Second Article of the First
Amendment. While this misnomer deserves noting, it pales in comparison
to the “missing Thirteenth” titles of nobility Amendment,
the militarily imposed “ratification” of the so-called Fourteenth
Amendment, the provable non-ratification of the “Sixteenth Amendment”
and the serious questions regarding the validity of the “Seventeenth
Amendment. “